Topic: Hedge Fund Manager Says Governments May Make Private Gold Ownership Illegal (Read 198 times)

Let's forget that this is another nonsense and that they will never do it and go for the scenario of this actually happening.

So, you bury your gold and you hide it and...what next? Are you going to hoard it forever?

So, this guy seems to be another candidate for the best contrarian indicator. Time to dump gold?

This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.
Governments banning private ownership of gold?OK,let's assume that this s*it happens.
The question is,who is going to find my gold,if I hide it somewhere? The government?CIA?The police?
Most people are hoarding small amounts of gold,so hiding that gold would be really easy.
I don't even wanna write about the fact that governments confiscating private property is just communism.

I've been hearing about pending gold confiscation for years by goldbugs and the like.  I can't see a logical reason for it to happen, but who knows.  These are crazy-ass times we're living in.

I'd rather bury attractive, safe, highly nutritious/high-quality foods or herbs with long-shelf life than burying gold.
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I think I would store or bury lots of rare super foods/herbs with quick and very noticeable positive effects in body when taken even in little amounts.

Oh that would be incredibly bad. It would make gold worth basically nothing and in the end they could tie the gold back to fiat if they want (or not) because gold would be worthless as well.

Well, maybe he is selling this idea thinking that doing so the value of gold will increase more and by then he can sell some of his holding for profits. Or maybe the man is just imagining things or seeing visions of the future...either way it is quite hard to believe a man with his standing. Granted that, yes the government -- any government for that matter -- can be deciding on things based on its own interest and not the people, when under heavy crisis or stress. Let's hope that this prediction will never come true.

Hedge Fund Manager Says Governments May Make Private Gold Ownership Illegal

Let's forget that this is another nonsense and that they will never do it and go for the scenario of this actually happening.

So, you bury your gold and you hide it and...what next? Are you going to hoard it forever?
Or when you need money you're going to dig it up and try to sell it at which point you might be dealing with a police officer and land in prison?
It's already a pain in the ass to sell real gold now, when it's legal, imagine how it's going to be once it's not.


So, this guy seems to be another candidate for the best contrarian indicator. Time to dump gold?

Governments banning private ownership of gold?OK,let's assume that this s*it happens.
The question is,who is going to find my gold,if I hide it somewhere? The government?CIA?The police?
Most people are hoarding small amounts of gold,so hiding that gold would be really easy.

Odey is known for his eye-catching comments and bearish market outlook. In 2016, he predicted that a potential recession and higher inflation following the Brexit vote could lead to U.K. stocks slumping 80%. The following year, he told investors to watch out for the “Minsky moment,” referring to the term inspired by economist Hyman Minsky to describe a sudden market collapse that follows the exhaustion of credit.

The classic gold bug doomsday scenario.

I thought this was an interesting take from Nick Szabo:


https://twitter.com/NickSzabo4/status/1263156439616335877

What do you think of that? Like confiscating Coinbase's holdings (or Bakkt or anyone else) and paying account holders in USD "equivalent" like they did under Roosevelt with gold.

I've been speculating for a while about a potential place for BTC as a reserve asset, so that doesn't seem impossible to me. I just wonder on what kind of timeline. A lot probably depends on the stability of USD as a reserve currency.

Any scenario like this still feels many years away. Then again, just a few years ago these ideas would have seemed absolutely crazy, but everything is accelerating so fast now. Always faster than I anticipate.....

Yes, thugs will go after digitally centralized assets long before they go after individually controlled gold or crypto.  Predators target the easiest victims not the hardest ones.

Also, if this guy Odey really thinks gold ownership is going to be made illegal (which I don't think is demonetization, btw), why would he be increasing his position in gold?  Seems to me like if he really believed his own words, he'd be selling gold and filling his portfolio with other investments that seem to have a less uncertain future.  

“It is no surprise that people are buying gold. But the authorities may attempt at some point to de-monetise gold, making it illegal to own as a private individual,” Odey wrote in a letter to investors seen by Bloomberg. “They will only do this if they feel the need to create a stable unit of account for world trade.”

Odey, a long-standing critic of central bank policies who is known for his apocalyptic predictions, increased the gold position in his flagship Odey European Inc. fund during the course of April.

Crispin Odey, one of Europe’s highest-profile hedge fund managers, said that governments may ban private gold ownership if they lose control of inflation in the wake of the coronavirus crisis.

“It is no surprise that people are buying gold. But the authorities may attempt at some point to de-monetise gold, making it illegal to own as a private individual,” Odey wrote in a letter to investors seen by Bloomberg. “They will only do this if they feel the need to create a stable unit of account for world trade.”

Odey, a long-standing critic of central bank policies who is known for his apocalyptic predictions, increased the gold position in his flagship Odey European Inc. fund during the course of April. Holdings of June gold futures represented 39.9% of the fund’s net asset value at the end of the month, up from 15.9% at the end of March. A stake in Barrick Gold Corp., the world’s No. 2 gold miner, was his largest single long equity position.

The fund, which gained 21% in March, was down 9.5% in April, according to the letter. A spokesman for Odey declined to comment.

Fear of government confiscation is a common theme among some of gold’s most ardent supporters, who point for precedent to the U.S. government’s forced purchases of private bullion holdings in 1933 as part of a devaluation of the dollar. The price of gold was raised from $20.67 an ounce to $35, where it remained until the U.S. ended the gold standard in 1971.

Today, with major currencies no longer linked to gold, there’s no indication that governments or central banks are considering any similar move.

Gold futures for June delivery rose 0.4% to $1753.20 an ounce at 7:38 a.m. on the Comex in New York, close to a seven-year high.

Odey, who has previously compared the current pandemic to the Great Depression of the 1930s, argued that central banks would fail to contain inflation as the economy eventually recovers from the impact of global lockdowns.

“History is filled with examples where rulers have, in moments of crisis, resorted to debasing the coinage,” he wrote. Odey is not alone in betting that gold will benefit as high inflation follows the coronavirus crisis, although market measures of inflation expectations show that it’s far from a consensus view.

High inflation would hurt long-dated bonds and growth stocks, Odey predicted, citing forecasts for inflation rates of 5% to 15% within 15 months. “I very much expect that the authorities will fight these prevailing trends for every inch of the way, but I also expect them to lose the fight,” he wrote

Odey is known for his eye-catching comments and bearish market outlook. In 2016, he predicted that a potential recession and higher inflation following the Brexit vote could lead to U.K. stocks slumping 80%. The following year, he told investors to watch out for the “Minsky moment,” referring to the term inspired by economist Hyman Minsky to describe a sudden market collapse that follows the exhaustion of credit.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-20/odey-says-governments-may-make-private-gold-ownership-illegal